Category Archives: Games and Learning

Imagine a room full of families gathered together around laptops. They’re making animations and games using computer programming. Many of the children or their parents are pointing at or touching the screens as they discuss storylines and game mechanics. As is often the case with technology, the children appear to …

How do we live together in a connected world? How do we cultivate “global citizens” who can relate to others—across international borders and Internet forums, or political aisles and bus aisles? These are increasingly pressing questions, and ones that are considered by two recent publications: The Joan Ganz Cooney Center’s …

Early this morning, I spoke to a friend in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Through my webcam, the Skype video was still a little choppy, but clear enough to recognize that we were each settled into different parts our daily routines (the time difference is six hours). I took sips from a …

The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) Game Design Special Interest Group recently held a Mentor “Ask Me Anything (AMA)” with Game Writers in conjunction with the National STEM Video Game Challenge. Teachers and students throughout the United States contributed questions about the process of writing original video games. The expert panel …

The Interaction Design and Children Conference took place in June 2017 at Stanford University. The conference brought together a multidisciplinary community, focused on multiple aspects related to the design of technology for children. As part of the conference, we put together a workshop to discuss Joint Media Engagement (JME) as …

Olivia Thomas was one of the winners of the National STEM Video Game Challenge (2015-16). Now studying computer science and games, interactive media, and mobile development at Boise State University, Olivia has already gained teaching experience of her own as she developed and taught a game design workshop for middle school …

In his new podcast series, No Such Thing, host Marc Lesser surveys the current landscape of digital learning through lively interviews with students, practitioners, researchers, and more. To learn more about the show, we asked Marc to share how NST got its start—along with a few highlights from recent episodes. Thanks …

The potential of digital games for education is enhanced by the fact that digital games are everywhere. In 2008, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 97 percent of those ages 12–17 played computer, web, portable, or console games, and 50 percent of them reported daily or near-daily gameplay. Another Pew …

Children today have access to more devices and platforms than ever before. And that means they have access to more entertainment software too. Over the past few years there have been a number of studies looking at video games and children, from how games affect the brain and motivation to learn. …

Last summer, I had the pleasure of interning with the team behind the National STEM Video Game Challenge. While working with the Cooney Center, I helped create and publish online content to spread the word about the STEM Challenge, and I also had the opportunity to work with students in game design workshops. …